Mosaic Daisy

I was thinking about older people, basically over 80, but it tends to start about 70, when people start developing that endearing quality. As people get older they develop the ability to say anything they want and it is considered precious, admirable, inspirational, etc.

• Foul language becomes cute.
• Yelling becoming precious
• Sexual advances are seen as precious.
• Being crotchety is expected, and an earned right.

Ahh the treasure of age, to be able to say and do what you want. It is a rite or passage, something earned for advance to older age. It does not matter who or what the person was in their younger years, so much of their past is forgiven or forgotten.

So I am practicing for my old age.. I will yell at kids to get off my yard and be that scary old lady!!! Maybe one day I can earn the title of the “witch lady”, where kids will fear me!

“Hello, who is this?”… “Your parents”… “WHO?”… this could go on forever in an Abbott & Costello fashion or end abruptly.

This is something I often ponder, what would I say if they called? It has now been over 15 years since I last saw them, just shy of 15 years since the last time they spoke to me. And over a 1/4 century since I last lived with them. In that 1/4 century, there was a 5 year period where I tried to have a relationship only to have them slam the door on me again.

I recently was going over this in my head… thinking about them, if they think about me, if they have regrets? I think about my childhood where “I love you” was responded with “shut up” and or “Don’t say that”. Where things I would make or give them would not even hesitate before being tossed in the trash. My desire for college was responded with “we aren’t sending you”, yet I soon discovered that included they were not going to support me through high school, heck my “sweet 16″ included a beating. Since then, they missed my 18th birthday, high school graduation, turning 20, turning 30,… getting married, my first home, moving across the country, my 2nd home, turning 40 and so many other parts of my life.

But did they ever know me? I flash back to being 15, and hearing about them cornering a 7th grader against the chain-link fence at school and yelling at her.. she was younger than me, she was in middle school, had brown eyes and curly blond hair (note I have green eyes & dark brown straight hair).

Yet that takes me to the point that they also never wanted me. Since I was a child they told me I was never the child they wanted along with wishing I was never born, which years later evolved to wishing I were dead.

What does that make you think of me? Surely I must have been some twisted child, right? I guess that depends on your perspective. For my parents the fact that I was not blond was an issue (and I refused to bleach my hair), the fact that I was beaten up in school was an embarrassment to them (since they were thugs in their youth), the fact that I would not smoke, do drugs, drink or party. They had an issue when I signed up for the college-prep course in high school. So for them I definitely was not the child they wanted. They praised girls I grew up with who smoke, drank, did drugs, and were teen-moms. So obviously I was a disappointment for not being a “disappointment”.

I know my story is not terribly rare, but thankfully it is not terribly common either. I would not wish my family on anyone. My friend Katie shared with me a story that sounded eerily similar to mine, in British Columbia, a man close to my age, who also was abandoned as a teen, is being sued by his mother for support. I realize that is not in the US.. but with the direction our country is heading (adopting all the worst policies and laws of other countries, how long before this happens here?).

And this makes me wonder.. what if? What if they were to call now.. 15 years since our last contact, my father will be turning 70 soon, and he often has had major issues with the changing decades of his life. Surely the fact that their oldest child is closing in on 50 has to be an eye-opener.

If they were to contact me, what on earth would that conversation be like? Apologies certainly would not be involved, unless they were expecting one from me. They have never once apologized for anything they have done in my life, and they never will, they live in a state of perpetual denial or some form of justification due to their childhoods.

Why would they ever contact me? They are getting old.. and their choices are my oldest brother who is approaching 50 and barely can support himself, or my other brother is doing slightly better than our oldest brother (as he has been continuously squatting on a property for about 20 years or so now). But they surely realize if they expect me to take care of them, I promise to find the worst & cheapest  nursing home available, since I know that is their worst nightmare. This would only be because the alternatives are not legal (yet).

So yes I do think the odds of them contacting me being somewhere between slim and nil, but it crosses my mind from time to time. I will forever question my own actions, what I possibly did, even when I know the facts.. that personal argument always hangs on my shoulder, and the pain of parents hate me will forever linger in my heart.

I recently visited an old “ghost town”, spectacular in one sense, but sad lonely and neglected at the same time.

So many things about the decaying ruins of what was once a booming town struck me. What were they used for? Why were they abandoned?

I observed nature taking the structures back to their natural elements. The buildings no longer had roofs, no doors or windows, just the empty spaces where they once protected those who lived within them. The stone crumbling, the walls held up by supports.

I took a lot of photographs, that did not fully hit me until I looked at them. I feel like these ghost towns, forgotten, no one knowing what my purpose is or was, neglected, left to decay. This made me reflect on my parents who have not been in my life for over a quarter century (with a blip in between where they temporarily gave into my persistent requests to have them in my life, then they vanished again). Because my parents never wanted me (and never held back telling me this) I have felt hollow, empty.. seeing the ghost town I felt like it reflected how I felt, lost, abandoned, forgotten.

I did break down for a while as I reviewed my life and my family, but I refuse to allow it to completely break me. I could look at those ghost towns and see them as a source of sorrow for me, but I look at them as something I can identify with. I want to see more. I want to see as many as I can. I want to try to find their history, somewhere there must be a story that exists.

While I may never know my family, I can find a connection to these forgotten, abandoned ghost towns.

I had so much more I wanted to say on this, but the words refuse to cooperate. I stop and I think of the comparison, and words simply can not convey how it makes me feel. It hurts, it burns, but if it helps me understand and deal with it all better, I will take that pain.

No this is not cleaning tips by Eloise or Martha Stewart but a reality check about life.

Think about a stain on clothing, furniture or the carpet Think about the cause of those stains, often a mistake or some mishap. Then think about the resolution for those stains… try to clean, mend or to toss it?

I relate the stains to people and events in our life. Do we keep these stains because we regret our mistake and must hold it close? Do we try to fix that stain? Or do we toss it and move on? Sometimes we are amused by it, looking back on that mistake and finding some twisted pleasure in it. Sometimes we keep it to remind ourselves and keep perspective. Sometimes we are punishing ourselves.

What has made me think of this? One item is facebook, that social network that brings people together (ahem, rolling my eyes). Yes I have been able to find and reconnect (sort of) with relatives I had lost touch with, and people I knew growing up. But why?? There is a point to people being in our past, us moving on and forward. If someone is not in our lives, there often is a darn good reason. Instead, the people I have reconnected with from my past are a mixed bag of train wrecks or people I envy. I have been hanging onto the train wrecks to keep some perspective, a reminder of what I may have become, and perhaps a selfish need to pity someone. When I realize that, I feel evil and guilty for it, much like keeping something that is stained.. if I keep it I am reminded it is damaged,  if someone else caused that damage I end up refreshing that anger of what they damaged. So why do I keep people in my life who have no point or purpose besides being a stain?

In my home I have been working on clearing out excess, things I do not use or need. I need to do that with my human connections as well. I am seeing facebook as more of a dead weight in my life vs the social reconnection it surely was intended to be, and might be for some. Yet I doubt it is that social reconnection for others.. many people just maintain superficial connections with others, or just like to blurt out their every thought or action to the facebook-universe, while others burn away hours and days on end playing facebook games with people they have no other involvement with in life.

Out-out stain!

Just like I am clearing out my home, I too need to clear out these dead-weights in my life. I can not cling to my stains for twisted self-torture, or refreshing anger… if they can not be mended or cleaned they need to be tossed.

I have to chat about tattoos, the permanent proof of bad choices.

A gal I went to school with posted (on facebook) some idiotic “love my tattoos” because they are “art” type garbage. I responded with, but if your tastes change, how do you sell or donate it? Another gal from school, who also feels required to defend her mistakes.. defended and praised her tattoos.. and off the two went comparing notes. I did add a brief comment in between (about the fading, wrinkling, and distortion over time), which of course I was attacked for saying, but I recognized that is a person who simply must defend their bad choices.. and that is what the chatter was focused on.. they were trying to make themselves feel better for wasting money on scarring themselves for life.

I have also noticed the class of most people who make the ridiculous choice, of a tattoo.. they are too often the people who complain about their financial situation, many have a hard time obtaining work (with sleeve, neck of face tattoos.. gee why would that be?). They seem to think the world needs to approve of their bad choices (and wasted cash). When I see someone with a tattoo I do have a lower opinion of them, I know they make bad choices, and while they might be nice or fun people, I do have less respect for them. I know the argument will revert back to it being “art” or some other bull, again that is just someone who needs to justify their bad choice.

I wonder about those who opt for tattoos they never can see (back, or other spots). One you really have to trust the person doing the scarring, and two.. how can you appreciate the money you shelled out??

How are people who opt for tattoos so completely oblivious to trends? Tattoos are a trend, the images chosen are often a very specific trend… and trends fade & change. Are they going to be forever committed to “love/hate” on their knuckles, unicorns, rainbows, barbed wire around their upper arm, or the loving committment to the person they were dating (that has long been gone)? Does the rock group they had tattooed on their torso forever “rock”? How about that cheesy trend of tattooing between fingers, or some odd verbage on your neck or lower-back? What if you no longer are so committed to your religion (or suddenly find religion, what will you do with those pentagram tattoos)? What about that misspelled Asian symbol or other error in foreign words?

Here is an article talking about tattooing trends over the past 50 years.. TattooArtist. Note the words.. mainstream, soccer mom, popular.. etc.. Once upon a time people opted for tattoos to be different.. now I am the different one!

Denver Post offers a photo history of over a 1/2 century of tattoos.. again I never will understand what is going through their heads!

Now circus side-show freaks are the norm??

WebMd on the medical risks of tattoos. What is amazing is that one gal (I mentioned above) defending her bad choice of tattoos, loves to repeat she is a nurse.. and what she forgets is having a mother who was a nurse I know nurses are not immune to bad choices!

More from Webmd, on the truth about tattoos.

Why Get a Tattoo?

There are two basic, very different reasons why people get tattoos: To demonstrate one’s individuality and uniqueness, or to show membership in a group. Should you get one? No, says University of Miami dermatologist Jonette Keri, MD, PhD. “Down the road, you may not want it — bodies at 60 look different than bodies at 30,” she says. “And, people still have preconceived notions about people who get tattoos. If you’ll be looking for a job, you may not get it.”

Well we sure can strike out the “individuality & uniqueness” when so many people are opting for tattoos.

Another article talking about the tattoo trends to avoid…  a few highlights:

• chain-link around arm, wrist, or ankle.
• tribal tattoos.
• tramp stamp.

Think about those, very popular.. but now what?

I found a site showing tattoo trends for 2011, and they scream at me.. “Mistake”.. heck there is one that includes the combo of a tribal-tramp-stamp (note the previous link on tattoos to avoid).

Here is another site on tattoo trends, that again just reinforces that these were people who suffer from making bad-choices.

What would your response be if you went in to see a doctor who had a tattoo creeping up his neck, or tattoos on his face, knuckles? Wouldn’t your opinion of him sink?

And when you run out of ideas, or space..people get even more disturbed.. eyeball tattoos.

Might as well touch on that other overdone trend.. pierce-everything! And even worse yet, the stretched-lobe piercing, where there is a HUGE hole in your earlobe, and often something ridiculous inserted in it.. maybe a grommet, or a bone-looking thing, or something else equally ridiculous.

Again these are all trends of bad-choices, and those who get involved in them will defend them with venom.

I went to school with many girls who are tattooed, they also were pregnant in high school, have been divorced and remarried a number of times.. and now their children are having children, tattoos, body piercings, and married or in relationships with ghetto-trash… to clarify that, the one teen girl’s boyfriend or husband has tattoos on his forearms ”wyteboy” and “wasted”. Ah yes not only is it tragically trashy, it is a ghetto-spelling. I bet he has so many career options waiting for him? Oh to further paint the picture, he does the half-shaven look, wearing a beanie hat with a baseball cap off to the side over the beanie, he wears white socks & sandals, what more can I say? And with that big “wasted” tattoo, I guess drug tests are not necessary, he has already admitted odds are he is “wasted”.

All generations make mistakes, we live and learn by those mistakes… but the mistakes are becoming more permanent for too many. And I am not just talking about tattoos or piercings, which are tacky enough… but how about all the teen pregnancies. Society has some major decay happening!

PS.. additional thoughts on the bad choice of tattoos… it is the short-sighted. The individual who “lives for today” and can not think past the moment. They do not think about how that choice will affect them, and they don’t care. They do not think of how that choice will “evolve” (decay) over the course of decades, and they don’t care (yet). They do not think of how long they will enjoy that choice, (barbed wire, unicorn, phrase, etc) and one day they will. But it is the shortsighted choice, that for the moment, instant gratification, me-me look at me, .. the life of the self-involved.

This relates too with the piercings, they want people to notice them, to be appalled at their appearance.. so they can be justified in being offended by others being appalled. It is a self-involved short-sighted choice. They do not think of the scars later, they don’t think of how they will blow their nose, how they will damage their teeth, how they have a bald patch on their eyebrow.. it is now, and only now.. and them only them that matters.

Then look at the teen pregnancies, this too has become a trend. It has been made socially acceptable, tv and movies and celebrities say it is ok.. so it must be cool? And all the accessories, the child just makes the perfect accessory. The term “baby-bump” just sounds so cute to these kids that they want one. The term “baby-daddy” is so common they must use that term too. Screw the consequences, it is all for the now.. who cares about the reality, the future, or how the heck they are going to handle being a single teen mom raising a baby.. that is later.

Instant gratification, selfish individuals.. this is what our world has become, the symbol includes a tattoo, piercing and a single parent trying to raise a baby while going to high school. Good grief!

I want & need to talk about reunions for a moment.

I come from a fragmented family, and I hear they have reunions, but I am excluded from those. When I met my husband, one of my hopes was to have his family in my life.. well either I am a leper, or they have some dysfunction of their own (jury is out on that for the moment).

My hubbie’s mother, has wanted to have a family reunion, and somehow I have become the person who has been trying to make it happen (I don’t know how, but I think there is a blinding sign glowing above my head, I believe it says “sucker”). So for several years I have been “working” on (make that banging my head against a brick wall) trying to get this group together. The logistics are tough.. the family lives at 4 different points of the US.

The optimist in me (who I am currently slugging with a bat as I write) thought gee this the different locations opens up a variety of reunion options. (Notice the blinking “sucker” sign is flashing again?)

About 2 years ago we all (I thought) came to a collective agreement on Lake Tahoe Nevada. (Hey my sign changed, it now says “FOOL”). Several family members had time shares in that area, so it seems it could and would work. Alas, a few flies were stuck in the ointment, one goes by the name “lack of communication”. Some family members were trying to get their time reserved, but others were simply non-responsive about what date they were going to reserve.

While I am not personally familiar with family reunions, I do not believe a family reunion works if people reserve completely different dates. So that coordination factor is a big one.. right? Ok seriously someone please correct me if I am wrong!

I backed off from trying to coordinate this group, in the interim the page I created for the family on facebook noted it was going to expire (partly due to complete lack of activity but also due to format changes). I posted if there was not further interest, I would let the page close. My husband’s mother pops up (several months after I posted that note) and asked if there is someway the page could remain, she wants this reunion.

Hey did you see that, the “Sucker” sign popped up again.. with that “Fool” sign… I guess I should see about just having my name changed to gullible? Ok..I am a sucker, fool and gullible. I will raise my dysfunctional flag begging for forgiveness as I have been desperate for some form of a family my entire life. So this sadly makes me do really idiotic things in the hopes that can possible exist.

So I took a deep breath and created the new page this week. I included separate polls.. one for the 4 regions, one for which season, another for which year. Just to try to narrow things down and get some feedback.  The only feedback was favoring Nevada.  My husband’s mother apparently retreated (again) when that idea was mentioned. Geeeze is she a wanted criminal there? In fact she does not seem able or willing to cross the Mississippi.

The discussions seem to only be between those who married into the family, vs my mother-in-law and her siblings.

In one of the discussions I have made a new discovery. I have been suggesting lodges & or resorts. The reason, since the family is so spread out, it would be nice to have everyone gathered at one location. Less running around, less trying to coordinate with people who have a complete lack of communication skills, and another bonus they actually are cheaper vs some cramped hotel. It would not be like just sharing a house, where everyone is on top of you constantly, but more like sharing a very spacious hotel with people you know (or should know). Plus there are plenty of things to do, so you can get away from relatives when you need/want to, or get together as you wish. I thought that would be the perfect idea for his family!

BUT.. talking to one of his aunts, I found out some new and interesting things.

Let me first back track a little, one of the regions the family is from is Ohio, which is the area my mother-in-law is preferring. So some of the relatives are trying to accommodate her and are looking at Ohio. Ok fine.. I actually found a nice lodge right on Lake Huron, that seems like it would be perfect, but no one would respond to that idea.  I discovered they were not just focused on the state, but the focus is even smaller.. Lancaster Ohio. And one of the hotels mentioned, a cramped, out dated (appears to have last been decorated in the 1980s).. it is also over priced, ridiculously overpriced around $200 a night,… in Ohio! Apparently my husband’s mother has stayed there and likes it (whole other discussion is brewing in my head as I write that, but let me try to stay somewhat focused).

So the idea is not a relaxing and enjoyable vacation, gathering with family. The idea apparently is to be cramped in a dank and boring city, where massive blocks of time will be wasted trying to coordinate with people who can not communicate. Any gathering will likely end up in a crowded and loud restaurant.

The thorn in my side on this idea.. besides the obvious, of the boring city atmosphere, and chaos that will surely relate to this gathering.. my other issue is.. I have no  had any interaction with most of these relatives, so for me either I have to be drawn to a place or the people.. well Ohio offers neither of those draws. The result would be an overpriced trip to a place I don’t want to be, to see people I don’t have any interaction with, and waste time being miserable.

And I try to flip back to that optimist I had to beat the pulp out of earlier. I know this gathering is for his mother and her siblings, and hopefully for my husband.. but when I am put in the middle of it, and when I never had family to begin with, I can not help but have these reactions and responses. I want to be part of the family, but I can not help but expect otherwise. So I naturally ponder the reality that I likely will be wasting my time and adding to more pain.

But how do I back away gracefully, and suggest this be a gathering of just the siblings? I don’t think I can, because no doubt some of those siblings will bring their children, and it becomes a family reunion. But who can and will go? And will they be able to coordinate? And if they do will it be some crowded and loud restaurant?

I sincerely have tried to make this something for people to look forward to, including myself, but what I look forward to apparently is vastly different from the rest of his family.

If I had just planned something, at a location I felt would be perfect, and just told them when and where to be, would that have worked? Well one I could not afford to do that, I would need them to pay their way.. so this brings me back to why I need their input and involvement.

This could be a fun and interesting trip, if everyone was willing to leave their own backyards. But I am guilty of that too, where I live has so much to offer and I want to share that.. yet that is not why they are focused on their own locations, they just don’t want to go anywhere. While I understand the limits due to the current economy, that is not the reason.. most of them will travel at the drop of a hat. So I just can not figure it out.. and I need to go bang my head some more.

from: Detroit News

A woman faces 93 days in jail, for having a veggie garden.

This is in Michigan, the state where foreclosures & abandoned homes are a common feature. Yet they have so much time on their hands they are cornering a woman for a vegetable garden. With the prices of veggies, she is trying to work with a bad economy and inflated prices. The issue.. it is the front yard, they say the rules say front yards must have live plant material & common was another point. So if she can get neighbors to adopt a veggie garden, then it will be a common feature.. since vegetables already are live plant material, right?

Contrasting this “horrible” veggie crime.. here are some highlights of current Detroit crime/or crime related issues (there are plenty more to see.. but this explains why a woman’s veggie garden should not be a target):

• CrackHead Infestation. a neighborhood trying to fix a problem posted a sign warning of a “Crackhead Infestation”, the creator of the sign was pressured to change it. Citizens have been setting crack houses on fire, to push the crack heads out-of-town. The article further goes into detail about the neglected & dilapidated homes (very sad).
• Armored car stolen. that about says it all for the current article.
• $45k in gas theft. thieves opting for the gas in the stations vs the money.

An article on the Wall Street Journal highlights the deconstructing of 3k square foot homes in foreclosure flooded California, and building 1800 square foot homes.

When new home builders went “fool” speed ahead with the building frenzy.. at the same time the demand of McMansions was also declining. The economy has also reduced the desire for over-the-top homes, and people are returning to a realistic desire for a home that does not require long-distance calls to reach the other wing.

The builders who are buying up the partially built construction have found cheaper to level those homes and start from scratch.

I do wonder what will happen to homeowners who had previously purchased those oversized homes, they bought because they thought they “had to”. Our first home was monstrous, but we did not have a lot of choices it was at the peak of the massive home frenzy.. we do not miss owning that canyon of a house. Heck what we have now is more home than we need or should have.. so looking forward to seeing builders building reasonable homes! It will be interesting to see when we all crawl out of this economic black hole, what we will see at the top.

Someone shared with me that they heard that home values were expected to go up this year. Really? They did not have any information to directly refer me to, so I pondered..

It is perspective. Look at Florida (see Yahoo! article, talking about the 15 worst home markets)

If you bought a home in Miami in 2005, we’re sorry: over the following six years it depreciated in value by more than 54.3%

So if your home has dropped to half its value in 6 years, an impressive 20% increase still leaves you with over a 30% loss. It is perspective.

Freddie Mac, offers a (pseudo) positive political spin on the housing market. They do note that business is down, jobs are down, sales are down, manufacturing is down, etc.. BUT mortgage rates are also down & rentals are up.

Yes Freddie, mortgage rates are quite pleasing to the eyes, but due to the housing market collapse the additional restrictions & requirements prevent people from purchasing, so they have to rent. At the same time those same restrictions keeping people from buying are also keeping people from selling so they NEED to rent. It is not something they want to do, but the alternative is to opt for foreclosure themselves.

The Freddie Mac article also titles itself the “Doughnut or the Hole” as they refer to a quote ” Between the optimist and the pessimist, the difference is droll. The optimist sees the doughnut, the pessimist sees the hole”. Again this is the political perspective, insulting the reality of the situation. Yes we can sift through manure and might find a dime, but remember we did have to sift through manure. But I will play the game.. we can also look at the home from 1960, that sold for around $12k that same home would have sold for about $300k by the peak of the market a few years ago.. lets say that home was in Miami, and saw a 50% loss, they would be at $150k.. still over 10x what it was purchased for a 1/2 century ago! So statistics can be manipulated to make a positive, but we can do that to history as well.. would we learn from history that only offered a positive spin, or would we be harmed by not learning from the past. On a positive note, pessimism has a point too!

Also keep in mind there are factors from last year that skew the data. Between April to August the government offered additional tax credit for home purchases, so the sales had an artificial spike. In around September the foreclosure “boom” was halted, so there was a cease-fire in that arena.. that also creates an artificial comparison. So comparing January 2010 to January 2011 will be artificial, since the halt on foreclosure was still happening.. the balance is still lingering, the numbers won’t be true.

Even with the skewed numbers of 2010, we can still look at a broader range of data to assemble a picture.. (see bing), shows the home values are continuing on their downward dive.

I still can not find anything that says anything resembling what this person had heard.. and all the data points to the market continuing to struggle.

We live in a new neighborhood (homes built from 2004-2009, our home was built in 2005,  yes just in time for the market to nose-dive). It is a small neighborhood, a cute neighborhood, the homes are colorful, and unique.

Over the course of years, there is always something that needs to be updated, improved, or refined in some manner.. and sadly our grass was a victim to some kind of special death this year..  as well as many of our neighbors yards. We have seen sod-trucks fill our neighborhood, as neighbors are doing what they can to fix the blight. Well, many neighbors.. sadly not all.

As we are planning our method of attack for fixing the desert that moved into our front yard, we took a stroll through our neighborhood. It was “enlightening” to put it nicely. There are homes with over the top, killer, gorgeous yards.. wow, just impressive. Then continue to the next street and it looks like they are the trying to make the cover of “Foreclosure USA Magazine” (with the current economic issues, surely someone will grab up that idea right?). No there are no pending auction signs or otherwise, but some of the yards quite literally look like a bomb went off (barren trees, weeds the only thing surviving in their yard, etc). Neighboring properties look like they gave up or abandoned the property, except for a car in the driveway.

We pondered a recent discovery that a neighbor had received “notification” from the HOA, scolding him on the appearance of his yard. Mind you this neighbor keeps immaculate care of his home inside & out, he may have had some dead spots on his yard, but this is due to a fungus, that has infested the entire neighborhood, not neglect. Though I wonder, if this immaculate neighbor was scolded the HOA must have been rolling out those notices in bulk, due to what we saw on the span of an entire street. So many other homes it is no question that they are neglecting their yard, not just suffering from dead grass.

I am glad we took that stroll, the street that is in such poor shape is at the back of our neighborhood, we do not have any reason to drive on their street. My theory about those homes, they were the last built, they were at the highest prices.. and then just after they bought their homes.. the market disintegrated. So perhaps this is their version of a protest, perhaps they were so shattered by the house pricing plummet, that they just gave up? But they are adding to the problem, they are just further dragging values down.. they are hurting the entire neighborhood.. and they are further twisting their own knives. We can only hope when we go to sell either their buyer’s remorse has dissolved, new owners took over (with pride), or potential buyers of our home won’t accidentally drive down their street.

So why do I say I am glad we saw those neglected properties. It gave us perspective. There is a chance we may have planned more for our yard make-over, now we will keep it as basic as we can manage (I tend to really enjoy creating something interesting, and being creative tends to not be cheap). Yes, the basic plan, is sad in a way, but it would have hurt worse had we done work on our yard, then noticed those homeowners that only are maintaining the life of weeds.

We are in the pre-plan stage of getting something done, soon to be reviewing estimates, I am reviewing prices on rocks and plants… and surely I will have to submit a request to our HOA as well, since they seem to overlook the properties that are going with the “abandoned crack house” look.

It is heartbreaking to see the effects of homeowners who just do not care, or stopped caring at some point. I have never cared for the idea of living in a development, but the idea of a new home is always more enjoyable over fixing an existing one (that can end up being a never-ending project of surprises). We had lucked out with our previous home sale, we sold near the top of the market, but that means we also bought near the top of the market too. So this time, we will end up selling & buying at/near the bottom. But to every bottom there is a top. We look at any place we live as something we learn from, one way or another. So we are in the eyeballing stage for the next residence.. which is a wonderful combination of fun and exasperation..  let the games begin!

UPDATE (June 28, 2011) Here is one of the homes I described as a “bomb-site” what you can not see in the picture is there is a “tree” in the yard (well it looks more like a stick stuck into the ground). The yard you can see is dead, what is green are just weeds.. This is what is destressing to us about what has become of our neighborhood.